House Of Lords May Yet Become Senate

Press, Volume C, Issue 29487, 13 April 1961, Page 22

House Of Lords May Yet Become Senate

[By L. G. PINE, former Editor of ’'Burke’s Peerage”]

It is well known among foreigners that the British are mad, but surely one of the more curious forms of insanity in England must be the strange phenomenon of forcing a man to become, whether he wishes it or not, a legislator. In the last few years we have had at least two cases in which the inheritor of a peerage has not wished to take up the dignity and so become a member of the House of Lords. There was the attempt by Lord Hailsham in 1950 to avoid enforced ennoblement. Now there is the attempt by Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn to renounce the title he inherited on the death of his father, Viscount Stansgate. The House of Commons Committee of Privileges has ruled that the title is his and that he is ineligible to sit as a member of Parliament. But Mr Benn has said that he intends to continue the fight. Into the merit of either case I have no intention of entering. But I am concerned with the principle which has so far forced the heir to a peerage to take it up. Even if he does not use his title or go near the House of Lords, it means he must come out of the House of Commons. Feudal Relle Britain has been the world’s mentor in the matter of democratic institutions, so that it seems strange that her Second Chamber is the only relic there is of a feudal hereditary aristocracy still in power. In a typically democratic country such as Sweden, the House of Nobles was dissolved in the middle of the last century. The building now stands as a place of interest to students, and the Swedish Second Chamber is elected just like the First Chamber. In the United States, the Senate has an important part in the constitution of the country but is elected in the same way as in the House of Deputies. The Canadian and Australian Senates are anything but hereditary. In fact, no other country has retained any hereditary personages in its legislature. Let it be said straight away that the so-called feudalism of the English House of Lords is very far from forming any effective barrier to the will of the British people. The Lords cannot touch a money bill coming from the Commons. And with any other measure sent up from the Commons, the Lords have only the power to delay it for one year. At the end of that time, it automatically becomes law if the government which put forward the bill is still in office. Praying and Hanging Nor is there any truth in the oft-repeated story of hundreds of backwoods peers turning up at Westminster to exercise even the very limited power which they do possess. Only twice since 1927 have there ever been more than 300 peers in the House of Lords. These two occasions—separated by nearly 30 years—were concerned respectively with praying and hanging. Possibly it is a commentary on the main interests of peers. For the rest of the time the business of the Lords is carried on day by day by some 80 or, at most, 100 peers. They are public servants and receive only three guineas a day expense money. The truth about the House of Lords is that it is an example of the British genius for making an existing institution work, and also of the British dislike of being too thoroughgoing. There has been one example of the thorough method—the reign of the Great Protector, Oliver Cromwell. He sought to change the state, and in so doing succeeded in throwing down every landmark to which Englishmen had been accustomed.

One of the abiding results of Cromwell’s rule was a determination by the English not to be pushed into a revolutionary course of ' action. Since Cromwell’s time, there have been some mighty changes in England, but aU

of them have been accomplished by act of Parliament. One of the greatest “revolutions” was that of 1945-51 when some of the great basic industries were nationalised, and the huge structure of the modern welfare State brought into being. Too Drastic The House of Lords has been on the verge of being reformed for the last 50 years. In the 1911 Parliament Act, which then limited the power of veto of the Lords to two years, it was declared that reform brooked no delay. But a real reform of the Lords—to make it into a proper Second Chamber—would have been altogether too drastic. So it has happened that for the last half century one after another of the more flagrant relics of the Middle Ages has been shorn off the ancient House of Lords. In 1948, the right of peers to be tried by their fellow peers in criminal cases was abolished under the Criminal Justice Act. Few people regretted the passing of this antiquated reminder of Magna Carta—except those whose business it is to produce films and pageants, for undoubtedly a trial by peers in the House of Lords was a very picturesque ceremony. Then, since the war also, we have had payment for peers introduced, in the form of the quite inadequate three guineas a day expenses. This was at least a recognition of the fact that to be a peer is not automatically wealthy. Women have also been admitted to the Lords, in the shape of life peeresses. And life peerages themselves have become much more numerous, although with 31 out of the 912 on the Roll of the House, one would hardly call them a crowd. In addition to these changes, the power of the Lords’ veto was again reduced—by the Parliament Act of 1949—from two years to one year. Anomaly Remains Yet, in spite of these many changes, the central anomaly of the Lords remains. That is the presence in the House of over 850 peers who are there, or who can be there, solely because they happen to have been heirs to titles. There can be no doubt that —leaving personal cases out of account altogether—there should be a measure of reform which would permit a man to abandon a peerage he did not wish to inherit. He could either pass it on to another member of his family (as happens in other States of Europe where titles still exist) or return it to the Sovereign. As a matter of history, there is ample support for the view that a peerage can, in technical terminology, be surrendered. Many titles were surrendered in past days under both English and Scottish peerage law. It this measure were brought in, it would mean a welcome release to many heirs who feel that for various reasons—not the least being financial pressure—they would like to be plain commoners. Such a measure, if brought in without any other change, would be another example of piecemeal work on the Lords. But it should be possible to tackle without too much controversy or party bitterness the whole problem of Lords’ reform. It could be done in two ways. The hereditary lords could choose a number of peers from among themselves, as the Scottish peers do now, for a period of five or more years. Or alternatively, the hereditary element could be removed from the Lords completely. Only a Senate

In this case, the reformed House eould be composed of life peers. A further step could then be taken and the members of Britain’s Upper House need not be termed lord at all, but senators. There would then simply be a Second Chamber- as in other democratic countries. Meanwhile, there would not be the least objection to the continuance of hereditary titles in private life, since they would not interfere with anybody. They still exist in Sweden, although no peers sit in a Chamber of their own and no titles of nobility have been created since 1903.

Will the present case of Mr Wedgwood Benn bring a

Second Chamber composed of senators any nearer? I believe that it inevitably will. Whatever Mr Wedgwood Benn’s fate, the utter absurdity of forcing a person into gilded unrest by rigid adherence to the laws of succession will soon be realised. And once it is established that a man who is heir to a title need not inherit it, the hereditary composition of the Lords will be impaired. For the last 50 years there has been partial reform of the Lords. Now, with the spur of absurdity in modern cases of inheritance, we may well find that reform will come swiftly about through the very momentum of events. —(Central Press. All Rights Reserved.)